


Spinning

by texting_fangirl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic, Aromantic Reader, Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Handholding, Hiding, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, No use of y/n, Pre-Episode: s12e09 Ascension of the Cybermen, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, TARDIS Rooms, a companions musing after what the Doctor said in ep 8, aroace, gender neutral reader, i really don't know what to put in these tags i'm sorry, planetarium - Freeform, soft skinship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23041837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texting_fangirl/pseuds/texting_fangirl
Summary: “Yeah. ’Cos sometimes this Team-structure isn’t flat; It’s mountainous - with me at the summit, in the stratosphere; alone. Left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow.Sometimes even I can’t win. ”
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Spinning

**Author's Note:**

> a companion's musings, set after the events of s12e08; 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati'

* * *

The room was pleasantly dark.

The TARDIS wasn’t particularly brightly illuminated anyways, but after the dim candlelit villa the artificial light took a rather negative effect on your head. Or maybe it was something else.

You knew Yaz, Ryan and Graham were in the control room, with the Doctor; likely coming up with plans for how to proceed from here.

At the thought you tugged the big scarf acting as a blanket a little tighter around yourself.

The colourful spheres danced above you.

The TARDIS had her own planetarium - not really a surprise, given to just how many things fit inside her, but still a pleasant one nonetheless.

The dark, spacious room with its softly rounded dents in the ground, with pillows and blankets strewn around while a replica of stars and planets slowly moved through the air, was one of the most relaxing spaces you’d ever encountered.

You had no feeling for how time really moved, not like the Doctor did, but if you had to name a timeless place in the universe, you’d reckon this’d come pretty close.

It felt like everything was moving slower here. In synch with the lights gradually wandering across the ceiling so, too, it felt like time was moving when you were in here. A little slower. A little more steady.

Her voice came echoing back and you closed your eyes at it, but it was no use; only amplified the memory, if all.

_’Cos sometimes this team-structure isn’t flat; it’s mountainous - with me at the sum mit -  
_

You opened your eyes at the last word, forcefully emptying your head. Another trick the Doctor had shown you, came the bittersweet realization.

It all ended and began with her, somehow.

_\- with me, at the summit, in the stratosphere; alone. Left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow. Sometimes even I can’t win._

She’d been so close, there, in the cellar, with the scent of coal and ash thickening the air, had stood in front of you and you’d never felt smaller before her. Barely an inch could’ve fit between your bodies, yet she was further than ever.

There had been the candles carried by everyone, illuminating the space but it might have as well been a spotlight on her, for how relentlessly her eyes had been, watching everyone.

That Ryan had dared to propose-

He hadn’t known, you thought to yourself, resting your head on the edge of the wide dent you’d curled up in, blinking and watching a tiny nebula pass by. None of you had.

But somewhere you had.

There was too much pressure on your chest, more than a sigh could relieve.

Again and again your mind came circling back to the question of how, how you could have not seen it before.

How different she really was compared to all of you.

Then again, it was easy to forget. When she ran with you, alongside you, when she worried and wouldn’t stop spouting things to cover her own awkwardness or distract the opposite party, when her face would just brighten up at the sight of a minor pleasantry - snacks laid out, some miniscule detail she’d recognized from somewhere.

It was so human.

It was so… relatable.

The floor wasn’t cold. It wasn’t metal, or another material you recognized from the top of your head, but it was warm enough where you’d lain for it to be not uncomfortable, and so you stayed.

Dimly you wondered how much time had passed.

_\- with me at the summit, in the stratosphere -_

Burying your head in your arm wouldn’t make the memory go away.

She’d been there, standing in front of you, _looking_ at you, and yet you hadn’t recognized her at all.

She’d been someone very different. The change had been almost more frightening than her words, but they still stung.

Did you really mean that little? Were all of you humans really that insignificant?

It shouldn’t hurt like it did; deep, deep down, this dull, nagging pain. Of course there was a difference between you, a big one, a much bigger one than just two hearts opposed to one.

But to have it slapped in your face like that…

She hadn’t meant it, part of your brain reasoned. She’d been stressed, under incredible pressure by words of a friend she hadn’t been there to witness being said and the Cyberman threatening to breach through, even though the amalgamation of metal and human parts, half-finished and stapled together at the edges, hadn’t seemed that dangerous. You’d seen the Stenza warrior, the bots on Desolation - had been shown first hand that words and clever thinking could outsmart most anything.

She hadn’t meant it like that.

_\- Sometimes even I can’t win.  
_

Wasn’t defeat almost as frightening as victory? Knowing your boundaries, knowing when you were out of your field of expertise, knowing when you’d gotten in over your head and accepting that, still standing your ground, but retreating?

The Doctor was everything; intelligent, bright to a spark, so many unthinkable’s that the norse rope spun of only impossibles would be put to shame.

It only further proved how unlike you all were to her.

She was the universe, and you were specks in the passing breeze.

The low hum of machinery far below the floor, towards the center of the spaceship, was loud enough, steady enough to listen to, tip toeing on the edge of consciousness.

The boots were there, on one height with your eyes when you opened them the next time.

One of the bows had almost come undone.

“Here you are.” Her voice spoke, so loud in the silent room. Was bright and happy like so often. “Was looking everywhere for you! The Team’s all set, ready to go?”

She crouched down, still above you, looking down on the small cocoon you’d wrapped yourself in.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” You hurried to answer, voice rough and not meeting her eyes as you sat up. “Yeah, all good.”

A glance to her face told you she wasn’t buying it, even before she opened her mouth. That tiny tilt of her head, the minimal lowering of her eyebrows. “No you’re not.”

You pursed your lips and looked away.

“Tell me. What’s wrong.”

“Nothing.” Part of the scarf had wrapped around your ankle, and caught between freeing yourself and answering her, you were distracted.

Her coat shuffled, and there was the small exhale of air that meant there was something grating on her nerves. Most likely you.

You huffed and finally put the garment aside, standing and readying yourself to climb out of the indent. Like this you, standing, and her, sitting with her elbows on her raised knees, were eye to eye. You paused.

She lifted her eyebrows.

Maybe it’d be good getting it out, and no longer only thinking about it.

You looked over the floor, the other seating areas, and then to where the distant orange glow of the hallway flooded through the archway marking the entrance to the planetarium.

“It’s what you said, in the cellar, before the Cyberman came.”

If she knew what exactly you were aiming at, she didn’t let you know, only continuing to look at you with those eyes and an unreadable expression on her face.

“About how you were on a mountain, higher up than us, higher than the clouds. How it was you left alone to choose.”

Still no reaction. It was too late to go back now - a funny sentiment, coming from where you were - but her silence wasn’t very encouraging.

“It made me think.” A hand came up to rub your elbow, and still you were avoiding looking at her. “About how you see yourself, how you see us. You keep on talking about how, how it’s us humans, such- diverse beings and how a single choice of ours can influence history, for better or worse. I hear you tell it to all those historical figures we’ve met, who were close to giving up or- Or whatever. You keep saying they’re special, we’re special, but when it comes down to it… You say it’s just you making the decisions. And I guess that’s true, you, who knows how old have seen it all been everywhere done everything. And I’m not holding it against you, carrying all these burdens has to be insane. But…”

And the words left you, so sudden, and then there was nothing left in your brain. You lost your thread and didn’t know what you’d been meaning to say all along.

Her eyes had given you free when you hesitantly looked up again. She was watching the ground by her feet, or maybe by yours, with her linked hands covering the lower half of her face.

“Do we really mean that little? To you, to- everything? Everything that’s happening?”

Her eyes snapped up. 

“ **No** ,” There was a strain in her voice that spoke of suffering, but she wasn’t angry. Her words didn’t sting like in the cellar. “No, you **do** , you do mean **more** , infinitely more, so, so much more.”

She was unblinking, hands curving into fists.

“And yet you say it’s only you being the one choosing. You, alone.”

“That’s not-” She turned her head to the side before looking back at you, and now there was frustration on her face. “This was about _saving_ Shelley, not sacrificing him! It was him, him inspiring millions, millions of people, who knows how many people, or-”

Her hands fell into her lap, similar to her legs lowering from where she’d kept them up against her chest.

“No, this is about you, and how you think of things, not only this one instance. This is about you, and how- How you see us. You say we can change history, all it needs is a tiny ripple of us, the flick of a finger, but when it comes down to it, you don’t put faith in anyone but yourself. Or maybe you don’t, maybe you have even less faith in yourself, so you pull all the decisions towards you so people have someone to blame if it goes wrong, someone to point fingers to and say mean things, so you feel justified for your actions, as if you deserve suffering, for, I don’t know, something that happened in your past, anything; as if you’re somehow exempt to being deserving of happiness, and things working out, and people living through the tragedy and making it out the other end, soaring higher than before.”

Her eyebrows had lowered, her lips thinned, the longer you’d continued on speaking, but as you ended now her expression had evened out again. The looming threat of darkness had passed, and now she was looking at you, up, at you, as you stood next to her outside the comfortable space, feeling slightly jitterish.

“You know that, right?”

She blinked, and now it was your eyebrows threading together, your chest puffing out with the energy behind the things you were about to say. “You know you deserve to be happy, too. I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve been through, how many lives you’ve lived and how much hurt you’ve experienced. But you deserve to be happy. You deserve good things. You deserve the TARDIS bringing you where you wanted to go, and you deserve bad things to turn out alright, and you deserve happy endings, and you-”

She was on her feet faster than you’d anticipated, and then she’d turned already, head down and balled hands barely visible past the sleeves of her coat.

“Doctor,” You said, softly. Not knowing whether she might flee if you said the wrong thing now, or… what was the alternative? “You probably think you have to carry this all alone. Because it’s your TARDIS and you look out for us and because we’re so weak compared to you. I’m just- I want to help.”

She’d taken a step, away from you, but in the same moment you’d leaned forward and reached out for her left hand. She froze in place when your skin touched hers, head tilting in the other direction even though you couldn’t see her face. “Please.”

“You’ll get hurt.”

The words were thick, and pressed out. Her shoulders shook as she drew a long breath.

“Noone understands. If I make them see, they end up broken. Locked away. Succumb to a fight that shouldn’t ever have been theirs. Slip between existences.” The hand between your fingers was hard with unwavering tension, yet her voice softened at her next words. “I can’t have anyone else get hurt on my account. ‘Specially not you.”

You didn’t even attempt to tug and get her to turn around and face you; instead taking the initiative and rounding her. Keeping your head up and staring at her until her flickering gaze met yours. Stayed.

“They say split the burden and share it with someone else, but it only looks like it’ll put strain on them instead of relieving you. But sometimes it’s not about putting pressure on someone, or try to get them to feel what you’ve been through. Sometimes it’s enough to talk. To get thoughts that have been circling your mind for weeks on end, accumulating more and more darkness around them, to speak them out and rephrase them and force them to change themselves. Sometimes it helps just putting it out there. Not keeping it all locked up inside there.”

Her fingers twitched as you took a step closer, so close that the tips of her boots and yours almost met, and then she looked at you as you lifted your other hand and gently tapped the tip of your finger against her temple.

“You say you’re messy because you leave things lying ‘round the TARDIS all the time?” The corners of her mouth twitched, but not into anything, neither smile nor scowl. “I won’t pretend and say I have no issues, or that I’m a therapist or anything, but I will listen if you need to unwind those threads of thoughts and spin them into a ball of yarn. Don’t know what you’d do with metaphorical balls of yarn made out of thoughts or where I was going with this allegory but-”

That made her chuckle. You’d almost missed it, between her dropping her head and her thumb softly rubbing over the back of your hand.

Your own smile returned.

“See? It works.” You squeezed her hand. She looked up again.

“But I haven’t said anything!”

“It worked for me, just now. You listened, remember? You listened to me put my thoughts into words, and now I managed to make you smile again. That’s an achievement.” The beginning bream on her face widened at that. “Not everyone can put ‘made a millenia old being who’s had several faces and bodies and lives spend travelling all of time and space laugh’ on their resume now, can they?”

She laughed, shook her head from side to side, softly pulling your hand towards her.

“‘Spose they can’t, no.” She ultimately agreed, and you leaned forward and closed your arms around her.

She gave into the touch without hesitation, wrapped her arms around you, too, and tucked her head into your neck.

“Thank you.” She whispered, as you felt for her heartbeats with your hands spread over her back.

You squeezed her tighter in answer.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this after watching 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati', pre seeing the finale, as a way to work out some stuff that touched me in that ep.  
> what 13 said, the quote at the start, that really stuck with me, because that's how she sees herself and her companions, right? always has. idk. it's really... those were some strong words.  
> i'm not particularly fond of how the end of this season turned out, to be honest, but then again I would gladly take an entire season filled with filler episodes and slice of life themes over more hurt and death.  
> on that note, i've noticed 13's kill-counter is, like, _there_. you can look past it easily but pretty much every episode there's some collateral damage in the form of one or more people dying around Team TARDIS. did i forget that happened with the other Doctor's, as well?  
> theoretical question.  
> i just don't want to see her hurting anymore.


End file.
